Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
"Ric Bienstock When a black professor was branded a ‘white supremacist’, I knew our universities had lost the plot I’ve made films about Ebola and human trafficking, but nothing prepared me for what I found on woke campuses"
It needs to be kept slightly ahead of the state pension I think otherwise you get into a whole bunch of moral hazard (Do you remove it from the basic state pension ?!?)/administrative nightmare for relatively small beer.
The lady who cuts my hair was complaining the other day that it was an outrage that people on only state pension had to pay tax!
I think we saw from the calamitous WFA debacle that once the public make up their mind it’s very hard to move them .
Burnham and Healey whilst not spending a great deal at least are trying to store up some goodwill .
Small steps
Inflation unexpectedly continuing to go south against expectations is a positive too. (Burnham will be praying that continues to September when all the various pension indexs are linked to September inflation figure)
The politician in Burnham , as I suggested yesterday, will want to get the the budger and say we have saved the majority of the population £xxx (I think he'll be looking at £500 as a target) by these simple measures, there may be 10x £50 measures, that will qualify as his "breathing space"...
Budgets offer bigger more headline measures but if he can continue this "breathing space" theme trough in to 2027 it just starts to drip down like continual short but regular shwers into the public pshyche - far better than one off torrential downpout then drought!
The Tories can bleat it's uncosted (a) it's costed to a degree (b) the public don't care (c) the Public still don't believe any Tory on the economy., Reform can call for a GE all they like as Farage looks increasingly desperate and yesterdays man.
What we are seeing is the start of a Government that is far more politically tuned in and whilst it may not be a better one than Starmer, if the public have a modicum of trust and belief it goes a long way. Of course its the job of the right wing media, eg 90% of the media to disparage it and to just find moaners and whingers, but slowly but surely the thought that Government is on your side will permeate.
£500 times 70 million people is £35 billion. Even £500 times 20 million households in £10 billion. If there were that much cash down the back of the sofa, Rachel Reeves would still be popular.
There's a current in British thinking that says that bad things shouldn't happen to anyone good ever. It's not particularly left or right, though it manifests in different ways. For various reasons, Andy Burnham has ridden that current all the way to Downing g Street. It's much easier to do as a Metro Mayor, much harder as PM.
(The right wing version goes something like this. Sir Marcus Fox once told Peter Lilley that it was easy to cut a billion from welfare. Lilley (no wet liberal he) replied that meant a thousand pounds from a million poor families so no it wasn't easy.)
Disqualify anyone with ADHD or anxiety from PIP.
There.
People would die
Absolute sensational bollocks.
My wife and I suffer from anxiety, and I have ADHD. We work.
Look at the stats for a balloon in this nonsense after Covid.
It's fake. They can get a job.
They could also still get JSA or UC until they get a job
This is easily the greatest performance of the James Bond theme by any orchestra. In 2020, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was about to play the famous score but surprised the audience when the conductor is "shot dead" by a secret agent, squib fx 'n all, kicking off the epic performance without missing a beat. The best part is the cameras continuously cutting back to the conductor's motionless body 🔥 watch til the end https://x.com/Todd_Spence/status/2079675688311988429
Why have I not seen that before, absolutely brilliant!
(They all have earpieces which is a little weird for an orchestra, obviously a metronome in their ears to mimic the absent conductor).
Was just going to say it shows you don't actually need the conductor!
Tice says it is a matter of "safety" to be told whether the arrested and charged suspect in Widdecombe's murder was a member of the Green or Labour party.
I think we saw from the calamitous WFA debacle that once the public make up their mind it’s very hard to move them .
Burnham and Healey whilst not spending a great deal at least are trying to store up some goodwill .
Small steps
Inflation unexpectedly continuing to go south against expectations is a positive too. (Burnham will be praying that continues to September when all the various pension indexs are linked to September inflation figure)
The politician in Burnham , as I suggested yesterday, will want to get the the budger and say we have saved the majority of the population £xxx (I think he'll be looking at £500 as a target) by these simple measures, there may be 10x £50 measures, that will qualify as his "breathing space"...
Budgets offer bigger more headline measures but if he can continue this "breathing space" theme trough in to 2027 it just starts to drip down like continual short but regular shwers into the public pshyche - far better than one off torrential downpout then drought!
The Tories can bleat it's uncosted (a) it's costed to a degree (b) the public don't care (c) the Public still don't believe any Tory on the economy., Reform can call for a GE all they like as Farage looks increasingly desperate and yesterdays man.
What we are seeing is the start of a Government that is far more politically tuned in and whilst it may not be a better one than Starmer, if the public have a modicum of trust and belief it goes a long way. Of course its the job of the right wing media, eg 90% of the media to disparage it and to just find moaners and whingers, but slowly but surely the thought that Government is on your side will permeate.
“ What we are seeing is the start of a Government that is far more politically tuned in”
Hah hah hah 😂
Your posts are so hysterically funny. 🤣
Do you actually believe de-industrialisation, globalisation, automation, were decisions made by previous governments and can be unmade?
Labour is now massively split, and already sniping and briefing at each other, the government is now staffed with useless weird failures and felons.
This has effectively been a change from boring but living in real world of no money so sensibly not over promising politicians, to Johnsonian type populist politics. And you said “more tuned in” 😂
And as Labour doesn’t have a single back bencher who will vote for welfare reform - no one in government has a plan for welfare reform - no advisors helping them achieve it - they are screwed. There’s only one place this is going. Massive majority and they fucked it up 🙂
Do you actually believe de-industrialisation, globalisation, automation, were decisions made by previous governments and can be unmade? 🤣
Only day 3 - what should be honeymoon bounce - and I’m already loving it. It’s so funny.
Your posts are hysterically funny, so off the scale that frankly they're not even worth dealing with in detail.
But I'll indulge you on just one point, as you opine from outside on something about which you know nothing but purport to know everything. Over the past two months I've seen first hand a unity and purpose re-emerge in the Labour Party that hadn't been there for more than a decade. Darren Jones' decision to reveal himself as a prize tosser will only add to that, it absolutely vindicates Burnham's decision to sack him.
Have you no self awareness of what you have just posted?
You started with “unity and purpose re-emerge in the Labour Party that hadn't been there for more than a decade.”
You ended with “ Darren Jones' decision to reveal himself as a prize tosser absolutely vindicates Burnham's decision to sack him”
That comes across, from the outside, you in one faction sniping back at the sniper from the other faction!
Because the two distinct factions are completely clear looking in from outside. Perhaps you need to be on the outside laughing in, to appreciate how Labour became massively split this week - between “there’s no money left we can’t do whatever we want” faction and the “we can do whatever we want, why are we not getting on with it” factions.
You chose not to address “ And as Labour doesn’t have a single back bencher who will vote for welfare reform - no one in government has a plan for welfare reform - no advisors helping them achieve it - they are screwed” point I made, but that does prove the mess Labour have got themselves in, does it not?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
But most buses I see are pretty much empty
Surprisingly few studies have been done on the effects of driverless vehicles for road mass transport.
Driverless busses could make it more economic to run a larger number of smaller vehicles on some routes.
In the US, the personal injury lawyers are lobbying hard against self-driving cars, because they’re so much safer than human-driven cars.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
This is easily the greatest performance of the James Bond theme by any orchestra. In 2020, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was about to play the famous score but surprised the audience when the conductor is "shot dead" by a secret agent, squib fx 'n all, kicking off the epic performance without missing a beat. The best part is the cameras continuously cutting back to the conductor's motionless body 🔥 watch til the end https://x.com/Todd_Spence/status/2079675688311988429
Sadly, I can't watch it with sound as I'm not on Twitter but sounds amazing!
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
No, but the benefits for the retired and their protections have gone too far.
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
To be precise you said”there are far too many people sitting idly drawing cash benefits, be they ADHDers or privileged pensioners. Sounds like you did.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
To be precise you said”there are far too many people sitting idly drawing cash benefits, be they ADHDers or privileged pensioners. Sounds like you did.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
To be precise you said”there are far too many people sitting idly drawing cash benefits, be they ADHDers or privileged pensioners. Sounds like you did.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
To be precise you said”there are far too many people sitting idly drawing cash benefits, be they ADHDers or privileged pensioners. Sounds like you did.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Crucially it's a pretty cheap (In the round) start too though. Compare the politics to Reeves' WFA cut which cost/saved precisely the same amount of cash as these measures did in the first few months (0)
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
I wish I could use buses. Even when I wasn't disabled;ed the one bus though the small town where I live didn't always go where I wanted to go. Now there are two hospitals to which I have to go and I can't get just the one bus to either.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
To be precise you said”there are far too many people sitting idly drawing cash benefits, be they ADHDers or privileged pensioners. Sounds like you did.
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
I never said the former.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
To be precise you said”there are far too many people sitting idly drawing cash benefits, be they ADHDers or privileged pensioners. Sounds like you did.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
I've never noticed that in this country, the last point you mention. I use buses quite a lot when I visit London because they're usually a lot cooler in temperature than the tube.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
In urban areas, many buses have bus lanes, making them rather quicker in peak periods than driving. Most are cleaner inside than my car. They have wifi. And they're not obviously more full of undesirables than any other public space.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
Suspect it's more urban/the rest, and probably a bit of muscle memory of the old Metropolitan County Council areas. There are towns and cities in the south that have a spiffy enough bus service that it isn't a distress purchase, but they are exceptions. And the morphing of county councils into social care delivery units has left quite a lot of areas with few or no buses at all.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
In urban areas, many buses have bus lanes, making them rather quicker in peak periods than driving. Most are cleaner inside than my car. They have wifi. And they're not obviously more full of undesirables than any other public space.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
If you never use buses, how do you know that they're full of undesirables? (Clue: they're not. I've even seen some Tories on buses).
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
This kind of polling always seems obtuse to me, as those at the top of the list actually call themselves democratic socialists, and those at the bottom quite obviously aren't.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
This is easily the greatest performance of the James Bond theme by any orchestra. In 2020, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was about to play the famous score but surprised the audience when the conductor is "shot dead" by a secret agent, squib fx 'n all, kicking off the epic performance without missing a beat. The best part is the cameras continuously cutting back to the conductor's motionless body 🔥 watch til the end https://x.com/Todd_Spence/status/2079675688311988429
Sadly, I can't watch it with sound as I'm not on Twitter but sounds amazing!
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Its setting the mood music and attempting to come across as "on your side" on a shoestring budget.
Better politics and better governance than pissing money away on ID card bullshit.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
All thanks to the Bus Services Act 2017, which slightly counterintuitively happened under Chris Grayling.
(Actually, the whole bus data thing is a neat example of getting the ambition, practicality and regulation pretty much perfectly aligned to make everyday life better.)
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
With kids, granted, the economics changes. Five can drive as cheaply as one, and it becomes galling to pay five bus fares, even if it means you cannot drink at your destination. But I'd still ecnourage you not to dismiss the bus (particularly should your kids need to travel independently - I can't remember what age they are). It also tends to be a very good option for getting to the next town in rural areas if rail is not an option.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
Everyone has different circumstances. I live about 25-30 minutes drive from the Uni. I also bring my son to nursery three times a week. Its a no brainer to drive because (a) convenient (b) doing it by public transport takes 1 - 1.5 hours EACH way. The uni is at the top of a great big hill. The station is not. To reach the station in my town I have either a 20 minute walk or 5 minute drive (add in parking). Then the train is 40-50 minutes. Then either walk up the big hill (150 m ascent over a mile and half) or the bus (often busy with students).
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
I'm going to a wedding reception in deepest rural Shropshire in a couple a weeks, and the hotel I'm staying in is in a town about 10 miles away from the reception. I assumed I'd have to get a taxi to the reception and back (I'll obviously be having a drink), but Google Maps tells me that there is a bus I can take there, though it'll still be a taxi back afterwards. Cheers!
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
Serious change will require a Budget and the Chancellor has been in place 48 hours.
Mood music now and serious stuff at the Budget is sensible.
So long as they are working on the sensible stuff. Time will tell.
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Trump shitting on his allies again, having involved them in his war.
Trump: Iran did slip something through in Jordan, and if we had other operators, would not happened—unfortunately, when you let other people do your job it doesn't work out so well, https://x.com/Acyn/status/2079589628122968513
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
One real problem with buses is large shopping trips. Carrying heavy shopping to the bus stop is hard, and there's often nowhere to stow it inside. Of course, some will welcome the boost to small local shops but the impact is largely felt by those too poor for cars.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
Oh I know - but it's the 20 minute gap in the middle that is awkward. The trick with services is that if you run 5 services an hour people stop looking at the bus timetable as they know they won't have to wait long..
That was one of the fixes that made the London Overground so popular, if you don't need to look at a timetable you are far more likely to use the service.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
And do what things? The government is still in an adjustment phase, witness the Prime Minister's on, off, maybe on again raising of the personal allowance. Remember, Burnham himself did not want to take over as Prime Minister until October in order to give his team more time to prepare.
Which could well be the result that secures the Senate for the Democrats given they already lead in most other swing seats
Fetterman is in the Senate until 2028, and is fairly likely to switch parties (he certainly has zero chance of the Democratic nomination next time around). They may end up needing Texas...
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Same here. People need to be held accountable
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
It can be done from October to March this year without reference to any budget - which is what has been announced.
Come November it can be included in the budget and made permanent.
The awkward bit is I don't think anyone is going to see a saving as the price cap seems to be increasing by 3-5% in October so the saving is going to be lost in an increase..
'Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he will review the early prisoner release policy.
Speaking to reporters in Bath, he said: "I can't say that I can change the policy completely, but I will look at it in detail before we go further forward."
He acknowledged that there was "pressure on prisons places" and that a failure to invest in the prison system in the past had created "an unacceptable situation".
I expect that to get even better for the Dems, as they are still coallescing around their new pick. Plus Collins supported ICE funding without restriction. Which has not played well with another innocent victim of ICE gun violence, this time in Maine...
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Once you know which bus you need I recommend bus times.org. They have realtime updates on maps of the location of the bus you need. For every service in the country. It saves having to have an app for each provider.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
It can be done from October to March this year without reference to any budget - which is what has been announced.
Come November it can be included in the budget and made permanent.
The awkward bit is I don't think anyone is going to see a saving as the price cap seems to be increasing by 3-5% in October so the saving is going to be lost in an increase..
It also only seems to be on electricity. Most people heat their homes on gas. My electricity usage is fairly static - more lighting in winter, a little more cooking, less on refrigeration.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
It can be done from October to March this year without reference to any budget - which is what has been announced.
Come November it can be included in the budget and made permanent.
The awkward bit is I don't think anyone is going to see a saving as the price cap seems to be increasing by 3-5% in October so the saving is going to be lost in an increase..
It also only seems to be on electricity. Most people heat their homes on gas. My electricity usage is fairly static - more lighting in winter, a little more cooking, less on refrigeration.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Once you know which bus you need I recommend bus times.org. They have realtime updates on maps of the location of the bus you need. For every service in the country. It saves having to have an app for each provider.
I expect that to get even better for the Dems, as they are still coallescing around their new pick. Plus Collins supported ICE funding without restriction. Which has not played well with another innocent victim of ICE gun violence, this time in Maine...
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Same here. People need to be held accountable
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
There are already a number of reports and an inquiry. At some point we need to stop investigating and make any necessary changes. https://nottingham.independent-inquiry.uk/
Which could well be the result that secures the Senate for the Democrats given they already lead in most other swing seats
Fetterman is in the Senate until 2028, and is fairly likely to switch parties (he certainly has zero chance of the Democratic nomination next time around). They may end up needing Texas...
The Texas Democratic candidate Talarico leads GOP candidate Paxton by less than 1% on average, Trump endorsing Paxton over GOP incumbent Cornyn may well cost the GOP the Senate in that case
'DONALD Trump is reportedly furious at Ed Miliband being appointed as the UK’s Foreign Secretary under Andy Burnham’s new-look Cabinet.
Miliband, the former Leader of the Opposition, is feared to be a “point of friction” between the US and UK after several jibes and disagreements with Trump in recent years.'
Anyone over 30 on a bus is a failure, as Thatcher famously didn't say
One of the most snobbish comments ever, whoever said it.
Oh I agree. I use buses, and I'm way over 30!
I’m guessing the “buses are for the little people” sentiment may be one of those unadjusted social media imports from the USA. Buses here are just one of the variety of transport options people take, these days using Google maps to work out which is quickest.
Over there using public transport is extremely class and race based, to the extent that in some cities it’s de facto apartheid.
I got the new tram from Houston airport to my hotel last year. It was there, Google maps showed it would be quick, so I used it. My US colleagues were horrified. They feared for my safety (doubtless in their next breath some of them would happily argue Europe is a crime ridden no go area).
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
But does that tell us more about you or about your local public transport options?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
One real problem with buses is large shopping trips. Carrying heavy shopping to the bus stop is hard, and there's often nowhere to stow it inside. Of course, some will welcome the boost to small local shops but the impact is largely felt by those too poor for cars.
Round my way, people rich enough to have cars - often big, expensive ones - whine about having to pay a pound or two for parking and/or can't be arsed to use a free on-road parking space and walk a couple of hundred yards.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
'DONALD Trump is reportedly furious at Ed Miliband being appointed as the UK’s Foreign Secretary under Andy Burnham’s new-look Cabinet.
Miliband, the former Leader of the Opposition, is feared to be a “point of friction” between the US and UK after several jibes and disagreements with Trump in recent years.'
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Same here. People need to be held accountable
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
There are about 14 000 clinical negligence claims made against the NHS each year.
(and after Ajax, any weapons system ending in -ax should be ... axed.)
The CCA market is getting crowded and this top notch AI generated .png file is about 5 years behind MQ-28/FQ-42/FQ-44 and multiple Chinese systems.
However, it's a shrewd move by BAE to keep them on the UK government's tit for the decade between the end of Typhoon (2030) and the start Tempest serial production (2040). It's also a possible sign that the T-7 vs M-346 battle is lost for BAE/Boeing/Saab.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
Comments
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
But yes I have said those on benefits like pensioners should be paying the same taxes, inc NI, as those working to pay for those benefits face.
"Ric Bienstock
When a black professor was branded a ‘white supremacist’, I knew our universities had lost the plot
I’ve made films about Ebola and human trafficking, but nothing prepared me for what I found on woke campuses"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/22/cancel-culture-destroying-universities-speechless-doc/
I’m told she’s a real stunner.
Definitely a cut through issue.
Eh?
https://x.com/natalkakyiv/status/2079637166498447533
She has 11 people working for her.
WildBerries only a couple of weeks ago changed their Ts&Cs to disclaim war damage, and also increased their margins on sales.
At what point does the political pressure start to bear on the political elites in Moscow?
Let’s all hope it’s sooner rather than later.
You started with “unity and purpose re-emerge in the Labour Party that hadn't been there for more than a decade.”
You ended with “ Darren Jones' decision to reveal himself as a prize tosser absolutely vindicates Burnham's decision to sack him”
That comes across, from the outside, you in one faction sniping back at the sniper from the other faction!
Because the two distinct factions are completely clear looking in from outside. Perhaps you need to be on the outside laughing in, to appreciate how Labour became massively split this week - between “there’s no money left we can’t do whatever we want” faction and the “we can do whatever we want, why are we not getting on with it” factions.
You chose not to address “ And as Labour doesn’t have a single back bencher who will vote for welfare reform - no one in government has a plan for welfare reform - no advisors helping them achieve it - they are screwed” point I made, but that does prove the mess Labour have got themselves in, does it not?
https://x.com/paulg/status/2078807311263392182
Because we don’t hate lawers enough already.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus-statistics-data-tables
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
Almost enough to drive me onto a bus.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
"Which of the following people are socialists?"
Sanders: 55%
Mamdani: 51%
AOC: 45%
Obama: 27%
Harris: 27%
Warren: 25%
Biden: 23%
Newsom: 20%
None of the Above: 28%
YouGov / July 20, 2026
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/2079663743806378273
This kind of polling always seems obtuse to me, as those at the top of the list actually call themselves democratic socialists, and those at the bottom quite obviously aren't.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
James Bond Theme 007 - Dr. No // The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHsN5-YBLI
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Better politics and better governance than pissing money away on ID card bullshit.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
(Actually, the whole bus data thing is a neat example of getting the ambition, practicality and regulation pretty much perfectly aligned to make everyday life better.)
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
But for others public transport might be perfect.
It's awful.
The unveiling of Brontanax, the UK's first uncrewed autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft
https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/first-british-designed-collaborative-combat-aircraft-unveiled
(and after Ajax, any weapons system ending in -ax should be ... axed.)
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
Mood music now and serious stuff at the Budget is sensible.
So long as they are working on the sensible stuff. Time will tell.
Trump: Iran did slip something through in Jordan, and if we had other operators, would not happened—unfortunately, when you let other people do your job it doesn't work out so well,
https://x.com/Acyn/status/2079589628122968513
Maine - Senate Polling:
🔵 Jackson: 49%
🔴 Collins: 46%*
UNH / July 20, 2026
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/2079651230872133733
That was one of the fixes that made the London Overground so popular, if you don't need to look at a timetable you are far more likely to use the service.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
They may end up needing Texas...
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
Come November it can be included in the budget and made permanent.
The awkward bit is I don't think anyone is going to see a saving as the price cap seems to be increasing by 3-5% in October so the saving is going to be lost in an increase..
Speaking to reporters in Bath, he said: "I can't say that I can change the policy completely, but I will look at it in detail before we go further forward."
He acknowledged that there was "pressure on prisons places" and that a failure to invest in the prison system in the past had created "an unacceptable situation".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ejwedl1gno
They have realtime updates on maps of the location of the bus you need. For every service in the country.
It saves having to have an app for each provider.
Apparently is was the Duchess of Westminster who said it, or a poet called Brian Howard, maybe.
Maine Senate: Pine Tree State Poll/UNH
Troy Jackson (D) 49%
Susan Collins (R) 46%
FAVORABLE RATINGS
— Jackson: 37% fav, 32% unfav, 15% neutral, 15% don't know enough
— Collins: 35% fav, 53% unfav, 12% neutral, 0% don't know enough
https://nottingham.independent-inquiry.uk/
https://votes.decisiondeskhq.com/races/2026-11-03/texas-us-senate-general-election/polling
Miliband, the former Leader of the Opposition, is feared to be a “point of friction” between the US and UK after several jibes and disagreements with Trump in recent years.'
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/39796335/trump-furious-miliband-foreign-secretary-after-burnham-call/
Over there using public transport is extremely class and race based, to the extent that in some cities it’s de facto apartheid.
I got the new tram from Houston airport to my hotel last year. It was there, Google maps showed it would be quick, so I used it. My US colleagues were horrified. They feared for my safety (doubtless in their next breath some of them would happily argue Europe is a crime ridden no go area).
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
And he’d never appoint anyone who might be less than perfectly polite to the UK, would he?
However, it's a shrewd move by BAE to keep them on the UK government's tit for the decade between the end of Typhoon (2030) and the start Tempest serial production (2040). It's also a possible sign that the T-7 vs M-346 battle is lost for BAE/Boeing/Saab.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.